[GS] Will labor systems remain under-represented in the game?

[Aussie_Lurker]

Given that almost all the new Civics (possibly even all of them) will be from the new Future Era, I feel its fair to say that we won't be seeing any improvement in how historical labour systems are represented in the game. Outside of Serfdom & Press Gangs, I feel like there is no real representation of the vital role that different labor systems had on civilizations-& even the two I mentioned are really extremely shallow representations.

Slavery, Indentured Servitude (debtors prisons, workhouses etc), Collective Labor (Unionism) & so called "Free Labor" (aka contract labor/casual labor) are all systems that could-& should-have representations within the Social Policy system IMHO-with impacts on Builder abilities and the yields of certain districts/improvements.

Whilst we're on the subject, legal-oriented Economic policies are also horribly under-represented/poorly represented in the game IMHO....but that is a discussion for another day. Needless to say I'd like my Theocracy to be able to Enact Canon/Ecclesiastic Law.....and have Court Houses in my cities that such policies can impact on.

On a side note, do you think the Resource Management Social Policy will get re-jigged? What other pre-existing policies do you think will get an overhaul?

 

[Dragabond]

I'd tend to agree and doubt that we'll see more in-depth looks at labor systems.

Although it would be funny to see a leftover Roman Legion try to scrub nuclear waste, only to be stopped because it was a union job.

As for the Resource Management policy, I would say that it has to get revamped, if strategic resources are going to be handled differently. Since simply having 1 or more copies of the resource might not be enough for a given unit, it can't work as it currently is. Instead I'd expect for it to do something like increase the amount of resources produced by a certain margin, or speed up how quickly you get another (if I was interpreting the small tidbit of info from the stream correctly). Comparably, Magnus' Black Marketeer ability was shown during the stream and read "Strategic resource costs for units are discounted 80%", so it would likely do something similar.

Also, as much as I'd hate to see it get a nerf since I use it all the time, Gunboat Diplomacy should probably also have something to do with diplomatic favor/grievances, even though it's concerning city-states. It isn't exactly the most friendly thing in the world to do, so there should likely be some repercussions to it. Strictly speaking, though, it doesn't exactly need to change.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Given that almost all the new Civics (possibly even all of them) will be from the new Future Era, I feel its fair to say that we won't be seeing any improvement in how historical labour systems are represented in the game. Outside of Serfdom & Press Gangs, I feel like there is no real representation of the vital role that different labor systems had on civilizations-& even the two I mentioned are really extremely shallow representations.

Managing your empire, in terms of your relationship with your own people, doesn't seem to be an area of interest for the development team. I doubt we'll see anything substantive. At best, a policy card.

Also, as much as I'd hate to see it get a nerf since I use it all the time, Gunboat Diplomacy should probably also have something to do with diplomatic favor/grievances, even though it's concerning city-states. It isn't exactly the most friendly thing in the world to do, so there should likely be some repercussions to it.

Good thought. It would be nice if there were some things like this, that pose trade offs. Getting favor in terms of influence, while also raising grievances would be ideal for Gunboat Diplomacy. I personally loved how choosing an ideology in Civ 5 created good relations with some civs and bad relationship with others. Similarly how choosing proposals for the World Congress gave you pluses with some civs and minues with other civs.

Not everyone liked that, though. The direction for Civ 6 seems to be away from player choices that have both positive and negative effects, and instead to create the conflict solely at the level of deciding between multiple possible positive effects.

 

[Pietato]

Not everyone liked that, though. The direction for Civ 6 seems to be away from player choices that have both positive and negative effects, and instead to create the conflict solely at the level of deciding between multiple possible positive effects.

Ya. I wish policies also came with negatives. It would make a lot more sense. They could relate them to amenities, gold, war weariness, city growth and climate change.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Ya. I wish policies also came with negatives. It would make a lot more sense. They could relate them to amenities, gold, war weariness, city growth and climate change.

Especially if you were limited in the frequency with which you replace one policy with another.

That then leads to a "revolution" mechanic where you can throw out all of your old, out-dated policies at once, instead of gradually modernizing.

 

[bbbt]

Slavery is in the game, just the exclusive province of the Aztecs - he asks 'do you want your people taken as slaves' and then his eagle warriors do that. There's also an oblique reference to it in the policy cards as 'triangular trade' is most commonly used in reference to the Transatlantic slave trade.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Slavery is in the game, just the exclusive province of the Aztecs - he asks 'do you want your people taken as slaves' and then his eagle warriors do that. There's also an oblique reference to it in the policy cards as 'triangular trade' is most commonly used in reference to the Transatlantic slave trade.

In school, I was taught a much more sanitized version of the triangular trade: the UK shipped manufactured goods to the Caribbean (including Bermuda), the Caribbean Islands shipped molasses & rum to us, we shipped salted fish and lumber to the UK.

 

[bbbt]

In school, I was taught a much more sanitized version of the triangular trade: the UK shipped manufactured goods to the Caribbean (including Bermuda), the Caribbean Islands shipped molasses & rum to us, we shipped salted fish and lumber to the UK.

Wow and I thought my school glossed over some things! It definitely can be used to refer to any three way system of that sort but the slave trade is sort of the 'exemplar'/main association of the model.

 

[Elhoim]

Ya. I wish policies also came with negatives. It would make a lot more sense. They could relate them to amenities, gold, war weariness, city growth and climate change.

Yeah, I was playing today, and I loved the choices in the dark age policies.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Yeah, I was playing today, and I loved the choices in the dark age policies.

Precisely my point, in some ways. Dark Age policies has softened people up to the idea that not every policy can be "all good", & may come with some negative effects. Heck, even New Deal has a negative impact.....so why not other policies?

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

See, if it were up to me, I'd all but drop the focus on Builder Charges for policies like Serfdom, & instead focus on increased yields from certain improvements, buildings or districts. So Serfdom might increase Gold Yield from Farms & Pastures, whereas Slavery might increase gold or production from Mines & Plantations. However there would be a cost, either to housing or amenities, for adopting policies like these. I'd also like to see Slavery give Builders the ability to use charges on Wonders & City Districts-kind of a much weaker version of the abilities of China & Aztecs.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

See, if it were up to me, I'd all but drop the focus on Builder Charges for policies like Serfdom, & instead focus on increased yields from certain improvements, buildings or districts. So Serfdom might increase Gold Yield from Farms & Pastures, whereas Slavery might increase gold or production from Mines & Plantations. However there would be a cost, either to housing or amenities, for adopting policies like these. I'd also like to see Slavery give Builders the ability to use charges on Wonders & City Districts-kind of a much weaker version of the abilities of China & Aztecs.

Strongly agree. This would be a great change. Extra Builder charges should be a modern day thing, associated with a more productive workforce. Having it come in the middle ages feels wrong to me.

At best, there could be an early policy to allow you to buy Builders more cheaply, to represent hiring foreign expertise/labour to boost your local infrastructure. There's lots of competing uses for early gold so this could be a difficult trade off.

 

[acluewithout]

Managing your empire, in terms of your relationship with your own people, doesn't seem to be an area of interest for the development team. I doubt we'll see anything substantive. At best, a policy card.




Good thought. It would be nice if there were some things like this, that pose trade offs. Getting favor in terms of influence, while also raising grievances would be ideal for Gunboat Diplomacy. I personally loved how choosing an ideology in Civ 5 created good relations with some civs and bad relationship with others. Similarly how choosing proposals for the World Congress gave you pluses with some civs and minues with other civs.

Not everyone liked that, though. The direction for Civ 6 seems to be away from player choices that have both positive and negative effects, and instead to create the conflict solely at the level of deciding between multiple possible positive effects.

I just don’t think the game is really geared to represent internal empire dynamics well. It’s more focused on the clash / competition of empires. And I’m okay with that. I think getting granular about your population wouldn’t really add much and would introduce more micro.

Precisely my point, in some ways. Dark Age policies has softened people up to the idea that not every policy can be "all good", & may come with some negative effects. Heck, even New Deal has a negative impact.....so why not other policies?

I really dislike balancing stuff with negatives. I think you just end up with silly min / maxing. If the game is well designed, then opportunity cost should be a sufficient negative. I’d keep actual negative consequences to just a few select bits of the game - eg dark age cards.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I just don’t think the game is really geared to represent internal empire dynamics well. It’s more focused on the clash / competition of empires. And I’m okay with that. I think getting granular about your population wouldn’t really add much and would introduce more micro.



I really dislike balancing stuff with negatives. I think you just end up with silly min / maxing. If the game is well designed, then opportunity cost should be a sufficient negative. I’d keep actual negative consequences to just a few select bits of the game - eg dark age cards.

Sorry, but I really disagree with you on both points. I don't think the labor systems have to be too granular or micro, but we simply can't ignore the impact that internal empire dynamics factored into their success/failure in historical terms.

Also, for all the talk of "Opportunity Costs", the reality is that systems with absolutely no negatives simply leads to extremely Meta "policy choices". Heck, even Civ 4 had negatives.....even if it was just in terms of the cost of the policy.

 

[Sostratus]

One mechanic that i am surprised isn't used more is new deal's maintenance cost per instance of bonus. Particularly as the game creeps its scope to the near future, there are a ton of ways to add powerful policies that simply cost money. New deal offers an extremely powerful bonus. Certainly one could see other policies around things like the climate system to be expensive. Want to toss some air scrubbers on those coal plants so you can feel better about polluting? Be prepared to pay big league for those IZs. Farmland conservation/crop insurance initiative to reduce drought effects? $$$.

Also, for all the talk of "Opportunity Costs", the reality is that systems with absolutely no negatives simply leads to extremely Meta "policy choices".

Well, the current idea is that slotting +campus adjacency means you can't run eg +commercial hub adjacency, and so forth. Of course, most cards are universal in scope and some things are just more valuable than others. But mathematically there's no difference between civ 4 having (+4, -2) and civ 6 having (+2).
Econ cards happen to be both very strong and have very high marginal utility (the Nth econ slot is nearly as valuable as the (N-1)th) which military and diplo slots just do not have. (How many times did you pick fascism over communism because you really needed that extra red slot?)
If they were gonna do more accessible cards with negatives, I think they should be tied to legacy cards. (And with a rebalance of wildcard slots for all governments.) So you build your GPlaza building and unlock a basic legacy card, but also 1-2 other legacy cards. So for example, take the collectivism dark age card. That would be an amazing example of how communism could have its basic legacy and then another that represents "what if we really commit to the ideology here, boys?" Theocracy might find a large boost for their majority religion, but see no loyalty generated from citizens of other religions. Etc. So the player can sort of play with fire if they want to. Perhaps a leader agenda is added to the pool, so some civs may like to see your zeal if you slot such cards, while others keep away from the company of fanatics.

Another more out there mechanic idea would be to adjust how demanding your citizens are as you progress to more and more advanced governments. Maybe at tier3 they start demanding .75 amenities per pop, and 1 per pop at tier 4. In exchange, the later governments & infrastructure are much more powerful. Or maybe its on some other axis than amenities, but you get my drift. This would penalize civs that rapidly rush through the trees but have little infrastructure in place.

But as far as "internal policy" goes, I think that they should continue the work they did in R&F and start making the Diplomacy cards have more of an internal policy bend to them. Think of it as your legal/labor civic from civ4: a more nuanced detailing of how you run stuff within the government you chose. They kind of tied some governor cards to diplo slots, but I think they could do more- including migrating the colonial cards there. A little rebalance of slots and you'd be off to the races.

 

[acluewithout]

One mechanic that i am surprised isn't used more is new deal's maintenance cost per instance of bonus. Particularly as the game creeps its scope to the near future, there are a ton of ways to add powerful policies that simply cost money. New deal offers an extremely powerful bonus. Certainly one could see other policies around things like the climate system to be expensive. Want to toss some air scrubbers on those coal plants so you can feel better about polluting? Be prepared to pay big league for those IZs. Farmland conservation/crop insurance initiative to reduce drought effects? $$$.


Well, the current idea is that slotting +campus adjacency means you can't run eg +commercial hub adjacency, and so forth. Of course, most cards are universal in scope and some things are just more valuable than others. But mathematically there's no difference between civ 4 having (+4, -2) and civ 6 having (+2).
Econ cards happen to be both very strong and have very high marginal utility (the Nth econ slot is nearly as valuable as the (N-1)th) which military and diplo slots just do not have. (How many times did you pick fascism over communism because you really needed that extra red slot?)
If they were gonna do more accessible cards with negatives, I think they should be tied to legacy cards. (And with a rebalance of wildcard slots for all governments.) So you build your GPlaza building and unlock a basic legacy card, but also 1-2 other legacy cards. So for example, take the collectivism dark age card. That would be an amazing example of how communism could have its basic legacy and then another that represents "what if we really commit to the ideology here, boys?" Theocracy might find a large boost for their majority religion, but see no loyalty generated from citizens of other religions. Etc. So the player can sort of play with fire if they want to. Perhaps a leader agenda is added to the pool, so some civs may like to see your zeal if you slot such cards, while others keep away from the company of fanatics.

Another more out there mechanic idea would be to adjust how demanding your citizens are as you progress to more and more advanced governments. Maybe at tier3 they start demanding .75 amenities per pop, and 1 per pop at tier 4. In exchange, the later governments & infrastructure are much more powerful. Or maybe its on some other axis than amenities, but you get my drift. This would penalize civs that rapidly rush through the trees but have little infrastructure in place.

But as far as "internal policy" goes, I think that they should continue the work they did in R&F and start making the Diplomacy cards have more of an internal policy bend to them. Think of it as your legal/labor civic from civ4: a more nuanced detailing of how you run stuff within the government you chose. They kind of tied some governor cards to diplo slots, but I think they could do more- including migrating the colonial cards there. A little rebalance of slots and you'd be off to the races.

Yup. Agree.

It’s not a big thing, but I feel that either both dark and golden ages should have had dedications with mechanical effects or they both should have unique policy cards. Overall, I feel like Dark Ages are not powerful enough, and Golden Ages are not really flexible enough.

 

[Sostratus]

dedications with mechanical effects

Do you mean golden ages should have allowed you to do qualitatively different things via card or otherwise? Or non-loyalty effects granted by virtue of being in the age?

Overall, I feel like Dark Ages are not powerful enough,

The loyalty side kinda bites, and at a more moderate level (prince-king) it wouldn't be uncommon for players to have to redeploy their governors to "hold the line" if you will. I love dark age cards, though I'm not sure they should be that much more punishing than they are; rather golden ages should probably give a little more of a pop to your empire. Combined with a rebalance making it harder and harder for large empires to achieve them, sort of how Civ5 had GAs as essentially a small empire strategy. (Perma persian golden age... insanity!)

I would love to see a civ that got some kind of boost based on the age they were in. China's bonus is very strong now but if they ever changed it, I think Dynastic Cycles would be a good target.
~~~~

One thought I had was that governments hold our policy bonuses but they also represent a response to the circumstances. So some internal dynamics could be captured by having policy card solutions to GS problems instead of just physical infrastructure. I mean I'm sure they'll have some but look at the robber barons card. Gamebreaking boosts to production and gold but it pisses people off. Police state also had a -1 amenity in vanilla, now it gives -loyalty.
Perhaps a small suite of such cards that are powerful and the detriments may not be noticed- until you start piling them together, then it cascades. I can usually tolerate robber barons once i have stadiums. I couldn't handle 2 of them. I could probably handle a card that reduced loyalty from population, but not many. At least this concept could capture the fact that bad governance can really shoot you in the foot, even if you meet the five year plan production quotas.

 

[acluewithout]

Do you mean golden ages should have allowed you to do qualitatively different things via card or otherwise? Or non-loyalty effects granted by virtue of being in the age?


The loyalty side kinda bites, and at a more moderate level (prince-king) it wouldn't be uncommon for players to have to redeploy their governors to "hold the line" if you will. I love dark age cards, though I'm not sure they should be that much more punishing than they are; rather golden ages should probably give a little more of a pop to your empire. Combined with a rebalance making it harder and harder for large empires to achieve them, sort of how Civ5 had GAs as essentially a small empire strategy. (Perma persian golden age... insanity!)

I would love to see a civ that got some kind of boost based on the age they were in. China's bonus is very strong now but if they ever changed it, I think Dynastic Cycles would be a good target.
~~~~

One thought I had was that governments hold our policy bonuses but they also represent a response to the circumstances. So some internal dynamics could be captured by having policy card solutions to GS problems instead of just physical infrastructure. I mean I'm sure they'll have some but look at the robber barons card. Gamebreaking boosts to production and gold but it pisses people off. Police state also had a -1 amenity in vanilla, now it gives -loyalty.
Perhaps a small suite of such cards that are powerful and the detriments may not be noticed- until you start piling them together, then it cascades. I can usually tolerate robber barons once i have stadiums. I couldn't handle 2 of them. I could probably handle a card that reduced loyalty from population, but not many. At least this concept could capture the fact that bad governance can really shoot you in the foot, even if you meet the five year plan production quotas.

I guess I just mean I’d like to see the game having both Dark and Golden Age Policy Cards and or both Dark and Golden Age dedications have game effects (maybe with the Dark Age dedications having some sort of negative). There’s no real gameplay reason really for wanting that though - I just dislike the lack of symmetry.

Dark Age cards are very powerful, but I don’t always have space to run them. Particularly if you’re still in Chiefdom. Having Dark Age dedications that grant abilities might help with that, although I could see that getting too powerful if you still have the Dark Age Cards.

I like the current ebb and flow of Dark Ages and Golden Ages. Dark Ages aren’t really a Malus - instead, they’re just a period of the game where you focus in developing your cities rather than expanding. If anything, I wish Dark Ages were easier to get.